Kin

[Trisha]

A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage—Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy.

Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood, but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Atlanta at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and marries into an affluent family. Annie, abandoned by her dissolute mother as a child, and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, and culminate in a battle for her life.

A novel about mothers and daughters, about friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction.

[Trisha]

Elyse and I are starting 2/3

[Elyse]

I started today and made it through Vernice's first section and started Annie's first section (6%). These poor girls. Not really sure what to think yet though.

[Trisha]

I'm finishing up Daughter of Egypt and then I'll get started!

[Trisha]

7 chapters / 26%

awe, very sad start
(view spoiler)[
and now these girls are in very rough, very different positions
I was so scared that guy was going to walk off with her from the bus! OMG!

and the Annie, stuck at the whorehouse with people barely her friends
(hide spoiler)]

[Trisha]

26 chapters / 66%

(view spoiler)[
oh my gosh, that is so sad the way people keep messing with her. she already grieved her mom why would they lie?

ugh! (hide spoiler)]

[Trisha]

and done

heartbroken
(view spoiler)[
I'm so sad that she lost her friend and that Annie lost her life
I was so sad that he left her but you could tell he'd always wanted more and she seemed content to stay where she was - but then to be with her boss *sigh*

but I was glad, in the end, that the other friend had at least figured out her marriage. I was sad she couldn't be with the one she maybe loved more but she was, at least, going to try to have her marriage be a good one.
at least her mother in law seemed to like her good enough too. . .
(hide spoiler)]

[Elyse]

I finished Daughter of Egypt so now I can lock in on Kin! I'm in Ch. 3 (14%).

[Trisha]

can't wait to see what you think!

[Elyse]

Do you want to start Pinky Swear on Friday?

[Trisha]

ooh that sounds perfect!!

[Elyse]

I'm 61% through (Ch. 25) and have come back to it now that I finished Pinky Swear. I'm determined to finish it before starting The Spiral Key. It's just boring lol.

[Elyse]

I finished last night. So sad. (view spoiler)[Poor Annie couldn't catch a break. 😭 I hate Bobo. I hate Hattie Lee who went and had another daughter and named her Annie Kay!!! Mrs. McHenry was insufferable but also with a good heart, I think. And Niecy found what she was looking for, a mother, a family. I think she did love Franklin but in a different way than she loved Joette. I like that Franklin was a good guy. I haven't decided on my rating yet.

Also, I hope the editor caught that Annie's last name changed 3 times throughout the book. lol. it was Robinson, Johnson, and Henderson!! But Clyde's was also Robinson. (hide spoiler)]